In this article I’ll
discuss and show how to make a horn cup – that is, a drinking vessel of horn.
It can be used as a cup, or depending on the size of the horn you can make a
drinking vessel that’s good or well over a pint. Please note that I’m not
making a drinking horn, in the Viking sense – rather were looking to make a
commonly available, common mans “glass” or ale cup. They were also called
beakers.

Horn was a commonly
available material, a byproduct of the slaughter that seldom went to waste.
When heated or boiled in a number of ways it becomes plastic and pliable, and
was used for all sorts of implements – combs, spoons, bowls and various other
items to include, naturally, drinking vessels. In this form you could find
them in several guises – a mug, cup or beaker, a “snifter” or small shot glass,
and the more usually considered drinking horn.

What we will be doing is
making a horn cup. We will do it “cold” for a couple of reasons. In this
article, it’s a work in progress as I make it step by step. I live in an
apartment, and trust me when I say boiling horn makes an odor your roommates
will not appreciate. While heating the horn has many virtues, working it cold
isn’t difficult, and with care yields good results.

I won’t be addressing
period methods or the history of the thing – there’s all sorts of great sources
out there. And plenty of folks who can do fancier and better work than I!

Rather the goal here is
to create a nicely presentable cup using common tools from around the house
that you can use with any period impression (horn vessels were in common use in
all cultures in some form or another as late as the late 1800’s) and can be
used both high and low – the usual denominator being the degree of
embellishment of the horn, from immensely ornate rich man’s cup to chieftain’s
drinking horn, to the simple tavern beaker and poor man’s table vessel.

The end result of what
we’ll be making will look something like this:

It’s a simple bit of
horn, plugged with wood and nailed, sealed with beeswax.

Materials
Needed

Horn (or section thereof)

Hacksaw

Chisel

File or wood rasp

Small piece of 1/2 inch
wood plank

Hammer (any will do, so
long as it’s not too big for the task)

Beeswax or paraffin

Optional: small nails

Exacto knife

A small knife suitable
for whittling”

Sandpaper, 200 grit

Steel wool, 000 (very
fine)

Time
Required – two
hours

Materials
Cost – Varies

Skill
Level - 3
(on a scale of 1-10, 1 being novice and ten being expert)

Step One –
Get That Horn!

There
all sorts of places to get horn, and while you can look online for all kinds
the place I went was Tandy. The horns they carry may not be the best for
carving – you want thick horns for that – but for our purposes here they work
just fine. Plus, they’re already clean and somewhat polished. So that’s one
more chore we can avoid. Also, they aren’t costly. The horn I used netted me
two drinking vessels, plus a nubbin from the tip.

Tools used here are
strictly mundane, and the horn aside, I got everything from the nails to the
beeswax at Ace hardware.

To start with, look over
that horn – you want to look for blemishes, dimples or dents. If it’s cracked
or perforated it’s no good, so be sure to examine when you buy. Of course we’re
cutting it down, so where the hole is, if any, can be worked with but why pay
for a flawed horn?

Now that you have it,
clean it up a bit. Not overly so – we’re about to mess it up – but if you wash
it and remove grease or residue its certain to be easier to handle. Dawn dish
soap works great.

Regard the horn –
depending on size you’ll get either one big cup, or two smaller ones. Either
way, the technique here will be the same.

Once you’ve decided what
size you want, start by cutting off the tip. If you can, make it about six
inches from the tip, and retain the nubbin – you’ll see why shortly.

Horn is as soft as wood
at this stage, but much slicker – I scored the cutting point with a kitchen
knife (or you can gently saw a light notch) all the way round where I wanted to
cut it. This didn’t make the cutting faster, but it did make a groove I could
follow, so it was much easier to handle.

You can mark it with
pencil ( NOT sharpie or pen, as the ink will enter the porous horn and not come
out for good) or tape as well, or do it by eye if you have a steady hand.

Now you’ve done that,
you should have a section that looks like this:

Sand
the edges a bit

This
seems a nice size….

Step Two – Making the Plug

Take
your wood bit. I used a piece of one half inch playwood, because its what I
had to hand, but if you can get a piece of one half inch solid wood, that’s
best. Oak is great, but hard to work. Pine will do if you take care not to
splinter it.

Mark
with pencil the outside diameter, and then reaching inside do the same. This
will both tell you how thick the horn is - you’ll notice that its thinner in
some spots – and allow you to make the plug a snug fit. Take note also that we
are not working the horn, we’re working the wood.

Now
knock off the excess wood – chisel it, saw it, whatever suits you, down to the
outer line. This is the rough diameter. Now comes the tricky part – fine filing
with a wood rasp or whittling ( I did it that way) down to the point you can
gently fit it into the narrower end. You’ll want to just be able to fit it
without forcing. Be sure to file it carefully, as what we want is as snug a fit
as possible. Lightly tap it into place with your hammer – lightly! If you get
too heavy handed, you may crack the horn, and while you can salvage it for
other things, as a cup it’ll be ruined. If its too tight a fit, sand on the plug.
Never sand the horn, remember – its all about fitting the plug. The horn is
flexible, but only somehwat, so don’t overdo it.

This is
what you should wind up with – a nicely fitted plug, flush all round and flat
on the bottom. Once the plugs fitted and tight, we’re ready to go to the next
step.

Step 3 – Sealing the Plug

Now,
looking inside you can see some gapping – that’s to be expected, and is
honestly kind of inevitable.

Take
your wax, and heat it up to liquid – not boiling, as it will burn. I suggest a
small saucepan, simply because its easier to handle than a large one. Then,
drizzle a bit of wax into that gap, and swirl the horn around. You’ll let it
cool, then do it again. It may take several times, but don’t rush, as you
actually want to saturate the plug and fill that gap – get in a hurry and pour
too much and the hot wax will melt what just cooled. Ideally, you should have
the plug tight enough of a fit that none escapes. If some oozes out of the
bottom, not to worry. That just means you’re filling the gap. Of course, if its
TOO gappy, I’d suggest making a new plug and fitting it.

You
then want to swirl wax all over the inside of the cup, completely coating the
interior of the horn. This seals the horn as well, and keeps the organic horn
from holding germs, tastes and other unwanted things. Take your time, and do
three or four thin swirls rather than one – you’ll get a more even coat, and
will be less likely to damage the horn with the heat of the wax.

When
you’re done, what you should have will look like this :

You can
see here where we’ve filled the gap, and sealed the wood of the plug with a
layer of wax. That’s exactly what youre after.

Step Four – Nails and Other Things

Gently
bore a series of holes around the perimeter of the bottom of the cup. Not the
wood, as it will weaken it. We’ere doing this so we can be sure not to split
the horn when we nail it – horns soft enough to work, but its also brittle, and
this is a precaution against ruining our work so far. Once you’ve bored the
holes – I used the point of a knife, a small drill works well too - nail the
nails in gently tapping with the hammer.

You
will want to use round headed nails, as flat ones will develop sharp edges and
tend to nick hands. I recommend brass for a couple of reasons – they don’t
rust, and when they tarnish they will take on a dark appearence resembling
iron, with none of the rust or discoloration iron will create. I also dabbed
the drilled holes with superglue before driving the nails – this encouraged the
nails to not work loose.

Once
you’ve done that, rub a bit of hot wax over the nails to be sure you’re still
sealed – if in doubt, check the botton and inside, you can always reseal with a
little hot wax.

Now the
test! Take the now done horn, fill it with cold water and set it on a level
surface on a paper towel and let it sit for half an hour. If its properly
sealed, you will have no leaks, and you have just completed your very own horn
cup!

Step 5 – Remember the Nub?

Here we
see the nub end – which is really just recycling. Pictured is one I happened
upon in an antique shop. It cost about six dollars, and once I saw it I
realized what had been done, and found it easy to replicate.

Taking
the tip, I trimmed the top opening, leaving enough to make the ear, which I
filed to shape and drilled. Then, just as in this example, I carefully lopped
off the point. At this point, cleaning out the inside was a piece of cake, and
I used some leftover wax to seal the horn. Its just the right size for a thong,
for wearing around the neck or off the belt.

As you
can see here, done this way, theres no need to fabricate a plug, and voila! A
handy little small cup that holds just about two shot glasses of your favorite
mead or spirit. Its really a very frugal use of the horn! And the last little
bit of tip makes a very handy pouch button, too.

Caring for you Horn Cup

Your
new drinking vessel is durable and with a little care will last you years.
Cleaning it is simplicity itself – pour in lukearm water ( never hot! As it
will melt the wax) and placing a hand over the opening shake vigourously. If
things are sticky, a bit of warm soapy water works well too. But be sure to
rinse as if you’ve used beeswax the soap can break it down . Modern soaps are
designed to break down organics, and beeswax qualifies, but this is less of an
issue with parrafin.

Remember,
however, this is a cup for cold drinks only! Hot drinks will ruin your seal –
the horn will hold up fine, but fill it with hot coffee and you’re likely going
to find it drizzling hot coffee as the seal melts out. If that happened, all is
not lost – just empty it, and you can rinse it out to be clean and reseal just
as we did before.

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Copyright
2001 by bryan gibson, 236D Pringle Circle, Green Cove Springs FL 32043. <sabakakrazny
at hotmail.com>. Permission is granted for republication in SCA-related
publications, provided the author is credited. Addresses change, but a
reasonable attempt should be made to ensure that the author is notified of the
publication and if possible receives a copy.

If this
article is reprinted in a publication, I would appreciate a notice in the
publication that you found this article in the Florilegium. I would also
appreciate an email to myself, so that I can track which articles are being
reprinted. Thanks. -Stefan.